Application of Adsorption and Separation Technologies in Water Treatment

A special issue of Separations (ISSN 2297-8739). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Separations".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 December 2025 | Viewed by 176

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Sciences and Mathematics, University of Niš, Višegradska 33, 18000 Niš, Serbia
Interests: water treatment; adsorption; biosorbents; sustainable materials; advance oxidation processes; photocatalysis; UV-based advance oxidation processes

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Sciences and Mathematics, University of Niš, Višegradska 33, 18000 Niš, Serbia
Interests: adsorption; biosorbents; sustainable materials; material synthesis and functionalization; material characterization; water treatment; advanced oxidation processes; plasma processes
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science and Mathematics, University of Niš, Višegradska 33, 18000 Niš, Serbia
Interests: advanced oxidation processes; photocatalysis; adsorption, material synthesis and functionalization; material characterization; plasma processes; water treatment
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Environmental pollution, particularly in water, has significantly disrupted the fragile equilibrium of ecosystems, posing a threat to both biodiversity and human health. Various remediation technologies have been investigated to mitigate water pollution and protect the environment, with adsorption emerging as one of the most common and effective techniques owing to its low cost, simple operation, strong practicality, and environmental-friendliness, as well as the simple regeneration of adsorbents.

This Special Issue, titled “Application of Adsorption and Separation Technologies in Water Treatment”, is dedicated to the development of smart and responsive adsorbents, both natural and synthetic, that exhibit enhanced efficacy in the removal of a wide range of organic and inorganic pollutants from water. The topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following areas: strategies for the preparation of adsorbents, the examination of various operational and environmental conditions affecting adsorption performance, adsorption mechanisms, thermodynamics, equilibrium and kinetic studies of adsorption, and aspects of adsorbent regeneration. Because many benefits and improvements can be achieved by integrating adsorption with other separation processes, including enhanced quality of produced water, energy savings, environmental sustainability, and a reduction in plant capital and operating costs, research in this field is also welcomed.

Authors are invited to submit original research articles, review papers, and short communications.

Dr. Jelena Mitrović
Dr. Nena Velinov
Dr. Miljana Radović Vučić
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • adsorption
  • separation technologies
  • water treatment
  • adsorbent preparation
  • pollutant removal
  • water contaminants

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

13 pages, 567 KiB  
Article
Effect of Performance and Fouling Mechanisms of Thermo-Responsive Membranes on Treating Secondary Effluent Containing Added Sulfamethoxazole
by Lian Yang, Haoran Qiu, Yingjie Yang, Lijun Zhao, Ping Xiao, Guoliang Liu, Jiang Chang, Shaoxia Yang and Feng Xiao
Separations 2025, 12(8), 218; https://doi.org/10.3390/separations12080218 (registering DOI) - 16 Aug 2025
Abstract
Wastewater treatment plants generally lack a specialized design for the efficient removal of sulfamethoxazole (SMX), a toxic and bio-resistant compound. In this study, secondary effluent from a Beijing wastewater reclamation treatment plant was spiked with SMX and used to investigate the filtration performance [...] Read more.
Wastewater treatment plants generally lack a specialized design for the efficient removal of sulfamethoxazole (SMX), a toxic and bio-resistant compound. In this study, secondary effluent from a Beijing wastewater reclamation treatment plant was spiked with SMX and used to investigate the filtration performance and fouling mechanisms of thermo-responsive membranes. Thermo-responsive materials were prepared using polyvinylidene fluoride, N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPAM), and graphene oxide through Ce (IV)-induced redox radical polymerization. The results showed that the removal of SMX and COD reached 42% and 92%, respectively, with a NIPAM dosage of 1 g, and the removal of UV254 reached its highest value at 57.9%. Additionally, the filtration flux was higher at a temperature of 35 °C with a NIPAM dosage of 1 g. The fluorescence intensity of the organic matter from the secondary effluent spiked with SMX and decreased after the thermo-responsive membranes were implemented, and filtration with the membrane containing 1 g of NIPAM achieved a lower intensity at a value of 3074.6, according to the analysis of three-dimensional fluorescence excitation–emission spectroscopy. According to the extended Derjaguin–Laudau–Verwey–Overbeek theory analysis, the interfacial free energies of the thermo-responsive membrane with a 1 g dose of NIPAM were higher than the others during filtration. Full article
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